Two Los Angeles-based novelists explore the rise and fall of human lives in their brilliant fictions.

Participant(s) Bio

Lisa See is the author of the critically-acclaimed international bestseller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Ms. See was born in Paris but grew up in Los Angeles, spending much of her time in Chinatown. Her first book, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, was a national bestseller. That success was followed by her first novel, Flower Net, also named a New York Times Notable Book. Other novels include The Interior and Dragon Bones, and her most recent, Peony in Love. Honoring her Chinese heritage, See has written a libretto for the Los Angeles Opera based on On Gold Mountain, which premiered in June 2000 at the Japan America Theatre. She also served as guest curator for an exhibit on the Chinese-American experience for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, which then traveled to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 2001.